Iran's president challenges Bush to UN debate
Iran’s president has again proposed that he and US President George Bush should hold a public debate and suggested the UN General Assembly later this month would be the perfect place.
In a speech to a religious conference today, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the UN location would allow Americans and people worldwide to watch and listen to such a debate without censorship, according to his official website.
Ahmadinejad first proposed last month that he and Bush should debate – a proposal the White House dismissed out of hand.
In his second overture today, Ahmadinejad said Bush would be able to bring advisers to the debate.
“We are ready to discuss the ways of managing the world for achieving justice, peace, friendship and removing violation and threats,” he said in the speech, according to the website.
Iran’s official news agency today reported what appeared to be a veiled threat from the hard-line Iranian President President Bush.
Earlier the official Islamic Republic News Agency said Ahmadinejad had warned in a speech that anyone who refused to accept an invitation would suffer a bad fate.
It said the statement was a reference to Bush’s rejection of an invitation by Ahmadinejad for a televised debate.
The official news agency did not provide any exact quote from Ahmadinejad containing those words, but reported that he said them.
It quoted Ahmadinejad directly as saying: “This is not a threat by me. This is a threat by the entire universe. The universal trend is against suppression.”
The remark, made during a religious conference held in Tehran today, came a day after Bush said a nuclear-armed Iran would raise a mortal threat to the American people and would blackmail the free world.
“I am not going to allow this to happen,” Bush said in a speech on terrorism. “And no future American president can allow it, either.”
Last week, Ahmadinejad challenged Bush to a live debate on “world issues and the ways of solving the problems of the international community.” But the White House dismissed the proposal as a distraction.
“We proposed the debate to say that the period of bullying has expired, but false advocators of democracy avoided it because of their arrogance and lack of logic,” Ahmadinejad also said Wednesday, according to the news agency.
Iran faces the threat of sanctions after refusing a demand from the UN Security Council to halt uranium enrichment before it enters talks with six world powers over a package of incentives.
Tehran insists that its nuclear activities are designed to produce civilian power and are within its rights. But Western nations fear it is seeking nuclear weapons.
Russia and China, which are both veto-wielding members of the Security Council and have key trade ties with Tehran, have urged patience with Iran.
European nations remain hesitant to call a halt to three years of talks, with Britain the firmest backer of the US drive for punitive measures.
